Was It a Spike, or a Setback?

Hey guys!

I have had T in my head for six years and had become largely habituated to it. It is like a high pitched ringing/whistling noise that can't be masked, but I have been able to tune out of it and thus it has normally been in the background while newer T and other ear issues came to worry me.

Not so. Yesterday morning I woke up and it was noticably louder and more jarring than I'd had it in a long, long time. I could practically FEEL it. I hadn't knowingly done anything the day before to make it happen, no loud noises (which is how I got it six years ago), nothing like that. Just came by itself. So I spent much of the day being worried and depressed about it, though if I allowed myself to be distracted, I would barely notice it just like before. I went to bed and it was still so loud and sounded more scary than usual and had a bad night of restless sleep no thanks to my anxiety.

This morning I woke up and the noise had mercifully returned back to it's usual baseline. However, no thanks to me giving it so much attention yesterday, my mind is still focused on the ringing noise and I am worried about it spiking up again. You'd think after six years of T I would have become hardened to this sort of thing! Did I get a spike? Or has it got another name? I was worried it was going to be louder permenantely, like I usually do whenever something pops up. If I knew the increase in loudness was temporary I wouldn't worry so much. But of course T is highly unpredictable and has a mind of it's own.

I know a lot of it is indeed mind over matter. I am aware that I should measure my responses rather than the volume of my T, but in the end I too am only human and it's human nature to panic. Just wanted to share my experience from the other day and wondered if anyone else has had a similar one and could offer me some words of wisdom? Cheers

 

It might be one or the other. Just have to give it time and see if it goes down. How are you feeling today?

 

Thanks derpytia, This morning my T feels a bit louder and more intrusive than normal, but not as loud as it was on Sunday. My H has gone up a little bit too, it I've had that experience before with past ear-related anxiety episodes and it settled down after a while, so hopefully this will be the same.

I wonder if it was the result of me going to a noisy swimming pool two days before the T flared up. I remember the pool was full of noisy kids (half term) always screaming. Afterwards I did feel a bit jarred and deafened (especially in left ear), but felt fine by the evening, and seemed fine the following day too. Most of the T is from the left ear, which has always been the more problematic anyway. Perhaps I had a delayed onset or something. Not sure.

 

Just to share I experienced a can popping setback as I have mentioned in another thread on 31 May 15 at a pool bar within a swimming pool also with lots of screaming kids. 2 days later I also experienced a higher T after so many days of super low T.

If the increased T is due to the can popping or noisy swimming pool for my case then the time to onset is similiar to yours? However I cannot be sure if mine is link to that or to the Panadol that I taken or just the usual good and bad days I usually experience.

 

I doubt it'd be the panadol/paracetamol that increased your T, it hasn't any affect on mine when I take it. But everybody's different.

I was in that noisy pool for well over an hour, which is about as long as past events I went to which also came with some unwanted effects days after exposure. Three days after Top Gear Live (which I found to be uncomfortably loud) last year my ears started to feel a bit sore and tender and my H flared up, along with my anxiety. No tinnitus spike though. It settled down over the next few weeks, though my anxiety certainly didn't help matters! I'm not sore over that anymore because I recovered.

I guess I'll need to just let time take its course and see what happens. I just keep worrying I won't recover, even though I've done so from past events.

 

@FuzzyFrey , can you please write if your spike has gone away ? I'm just having a similar issue here..and even though it's not the first time, hard not to worry after I've been doing so well.

 

Similar experience here. I've just had a 3 week long spike/increase in my T which suddenly decided to up and leave a couple of days ago. So i'm back at my baseline level now. It took about a week of fractured sleep patterns, going to work exhausted before i got used to it. I've also had previous spikes which have been a few days to a week in length. Some of the causes of the increases i've known... some just appear to be random occurrences.
So yeah, i can't really impart any words of wisdom other than the phrase that seems to have become my mantra lately... 'grin and bear it'

 

My spike subsided about two weeks after it's onset. It was tough while it lasted though. It wasn't my first time either, but there's always that seed of doubt and unknowing that gets to us. Hope you'll get over it too Gosia

 

Thank you so much for the answer Mine started last evening. I wouldn't really mind if not the fact that in bed it turned out to be a bit more spikey than I thought and I couldn't sleep for the first time in two months..Annoying , especially that I don't see any good reason. I haven't even been to any particularly noisy place. I was living normally and today I feel like I lost control again. I believe it will pass, but we're never sure until it happens..

 

So you are back to baseline now?

 

Yes, pretty much, touch wood.

 

So was I -yesterday. All calmed down, a day so quiet I could almost forget about T. Today some worsening again. I strongly suspect it has more to do with my emotional state than I imagine. I mean - maybe even when we think we're happy , we're not really..or I don't realise some negative emotions until they raise till the extreme version, but they eat me before and the T increases. Hmm..

 

I think a spike is a set back and a set back is a spike. What ever it is just keep doing the things that worked previous and keep your chin up. I'm sure you'll win.